In Class Mirroring

Today in class these were the instructions.

1. Person A shuffles the deck while thinking "What is going to happen to me in the near future?" Then they cut the deck in half, placing the bottom half above the top half and flipping over the first card (right to left, not up to down)and hand it to person
2. Person B takes the card and draws/writes down a few words of how the card makes them feel/think of, aka they interpret the card.
3. Person B tells Person A what is going to happen to them in the near future according to how they interpret the card.
4. Switch roles.

Daily Practice Mirror Activity

So originally I thought it would be cool to have two people doing a reading at the same time with the tarot cards. However, upon thinking about this, I thought it would be unfair and inaccurate, because I only have one deck with me at school and so neither of the two people would have the option of both cards. Then, I thought that the whole system of reading tarot for someone has a lot of mirroring and synchronization within it. The reader has to have a certain amount of synergy with the person they're reading for. So I taught my roommate about what I did every night and then told her how to perform the task.

First Person A shuffles the deck and thinks about one question. They pick out one card and hand it to Person B. Person B takes an index card and writes down the name of the card, three words that they think the card portrays, and draws a picture of how the card makes them feel/ what the card reminds them of. Then person B tells Person A what the answer to their question was, like a traditional tarot card reading. Then Person B turns the index card over and writes down the actual meaning of the card. Then the two switch roles. The rapport comes in when one person tells the other what is the answer to their question, or what is coming in their future. The person has to get a feeling of the other person in order to do the reading successfully.

This would be hard to do in class wiht only one deck though, so I think I will have to figure out another way.

Daily Pratice

Ahhh, I am definitely not satisfied with my daily practice this week. I only did it three times, because I was burnt out from my ComDesign midterm. It just didn't come to mind, mostly because sleep was the only thing on my mind. The three practices that I did do, however, I found rather 'successful'-- I know we talked about how you can't really do a 'bad' daily practice. But I feel like the three times I performed my daily practices went really well.

On Tuesday I pulled "20 Judgement" which was funny since my ComDesign midterm was coming up. I found it easy to focus at the time because I did it late at night. This is also apparent because my drawing for it is more detailed than some of my quicker ones. Likewise, the other two cards I did were also more detailed than normal. For the page of cups reading I had a lot of time to devote to concentration, so not only did I find it more peaceful than usual. The five of cups reading was a bit more difficult to stay focus about during the beginning purely because my roommate happened to be making a lot of noise. Once I got started though, it appeared to become easier as I went on.

Intuition and Spontaneity

The way this week's prompt was phrased, as well as the readings, reminded me of how I am around people. I'm not sure if it's particular enough for this exercise, but I'll continue anyways. So, whenever I am around people, whether they are someone I know well, an acquaintance, or someone brand new, my perception is habitually placed on how they are responding to me, what they are thinking about me, etc. And of course I don't mean this in the totally self-centered outrageously confident sort of way (like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast), but rather the awkward, maybe a little self-centered, but all too self-aware, shy person sort of way (can't think of a witty example for that one).

I get so nervous around people, wondering how they're perception of me is changing as we talk, that my habitual response is actually to become more nervous and awkwardly self-aware. It would be nice to break this habitual way of responding and opening up to new spontaneous possibilities, instead of being so carefully planned out. I often laugh whenever I am reading things that tell me I should be "more aware of myself, my reactions and my emotions" because I think what would help me more is if I weren't so aware.

Also I really enjoyed reading about intuitive nature because it's always interesting to experience. Like the "Blink" article stated, we act on our intuition constantly, but we hardly ever notice. I wish there was a way to harness it more, but perhaps that comes with 'being more aware of myself,' haha. Just the other day I had the undeniable urge to go check the mail, like couldn't ignore it, had to submit to it, and I went out of my way to go check the mailbox and sure enough the letter that I had been seriously looking forward to receiving was in the mail, but I had no idea when it would arrive.

Daily Practice

The beginning of the week went well. The two readings, the Ace of Swords and the 6 of Spears at the beginning of the week were pretty standard. My mind wandered a little, but not too badly. I think too, now that I look at all the cards together, you can tell by how much time I spend on the drawing, and how neat my hand writing is. Interestingly enough, the 6 of Shields, the next day's reading, not only has poor penmanship and a quick drawing, but unlike *all* the rest, I didn't even underline the title. I remember having difficulty doing that reading because it was Wednesday and I had a lot of appointments to go to that I normally didn't have to do and I did it earlier in the day instead of waiting to do it at night. Not only could I not focus, but I did it much too quickly.

The last three days were better, because by the time my ComDesign class is over with for the week, I am much more relaxed and find it easier to focus. The 5 of Shields was done on Friday, and is sloppier because I did it at night after I had been out with my friends and I wanted to go to bed. Because I was still wound up from being out, I found it harder to focus. Plus, I was too tired, and it was harder to pull myself back to the present because my body was just giving up. The 6 of Shields and the 4 of Spears readings went smoothly. I did the first one in the morning, right after I had woken up so that my mind was clear and not stressed out yet. The second I did at night after I had been doing work. It was a quick reading, but I was focused.

Zen & Archery

I think part of the 'bow cutting through him' means that he has let the practice influence or affect him. The article shows that his practice of archery wasn't just some activity he did. Instead, he learned about the practice, his mind and his spirit. By allowing the bow to cut through him, it means that he has allowed himself to fully submerge his entity in the practice. He tried to understand it all but only seemed to get more confused, but this in itself means that he was learning something.

I think that because my daily practice involves drawing one card randomly everyday, that there is already a certain amount of this "it doing me" instead of "me doing the daily practice" thing going on. There is a certain amount of trust that I embed into the cards every time I use them. There is a specific practice, too, like he had to go through, that I have to do before I can draw the card. Most of the time I feel like I am just interpreting what the cards are doing on their own.

Daily Practice

The first one I did for this week went really well. It was pretty standard-- aka I did it right before I went to bed tonight (Friday), so I was rather relaxed. Today went really well, and I think that because I felt happy and hopeful for most of the day that it helped me concentrate when it came time to go through the daily practice process. Hopefully, I can do it with a smile on my face more often. The card I pulled happened to be '6: the Lovers' which also is funny because I never usually pull that card for anything (c'est la via, yeah?).

[Saturday]

Instead of waiting till night time, I did my daily practice in the morning. I had been working really hard on homework and being really productive, so I just felt that I was in the right mindset to do the reading. My mind wasn't quite as focused as it had been the night before, however, because I still had the urge to plan the rest of my day. I did find it fairly easy to push the thoughts lightly aside, though. It definitely wasn't a struggle. I pulled the '2 of Spears' which didn't really help my confidence of all the work I had to do because it means "dread of future challenge, pessimism and heavy burdens." Hopefully if that's true I can work through it. Even though I felt ready to do the reading today at this time, maybe next time I should wait to do it at night. I tend not to try to plan as much at the end of the day because I am usually so exhausted.

[Sunday]

I'm not in a particularly good mood right now, but at the same time because of the emotional state I am in, I found it easier to do the reading. It was easy to go through the visualization process of casting a circle, because the sort of emotional overload I had before I did the reading emptied me a lot mentally, and I found it easy to go through and push my other thoughts lightly aside. Maybe it's because I didn't to think about anything at the moment, so finding a mental distraction was welcome. I pulled '11: Justice.' I'm not sure exactly how this will fit into my life. Hopefully it will mean that all of my hard work will be worth it by the end of this week. I'll have to keep it in mind.
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More to come for this week / next week combo since we're starting the new 'submit on Sunday' thing. I find the daily practice really easy to keep up with Friday - Wednesday, but Thursday (and sometimes Friday) is really hard because I have one ComDesign class that lasts from 2pm until 11pm so by the time I get home I am too exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally to do anything. Also Thursday morning I can't do it because I am working to finish my Comdesign stuff. But I do enjoy doing it, so I will be able to keep up with it for the rest of the week.

Daily Practice

Week Ending Oct. 7th:
So the new point of my daily practice is that the actual process is the thing that stays the same, so the card I draw is the variable. I thought since there were so many cards in a deck it would be a neat idea if I drew one card every day and then on an index card, drew something in correlation to it, and to write down three words that I think the card might mean. Then, on the back (or the lined) part of the card, I would write down the actual meaning. It’s sort of like a bizarre, emotive version of flash cards.

So today is the first day I am trying these new methods. I went home this weekend, so to me it felt a lot more comfortable to read the cards, since I was in my normal environment. Also, I did a lot today, so I’m more exhausted than I normally am. When I set up my process I found it really easy to visualize everything I was suppose to. I only wandered away on the thought stream once or twice, but the feeling of cards in my hand usually brings me back pretty quickly. The card I drew was the three of shields reversed. Actually, because it was reversed (aka upside down), it brought a lot of really symbolic things to me right away because since the image was upside down I didn’t really see it as the picture it was, but instead blobs of shapes, colors and light. It was like in that article we read about drawing upside down.
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The second time I did my daily practice, I was back at school. At the same time, I was still sort of mellow from having been home, so I didn’t find the visualization as easy as the first time I had tried, but I could still stick with it. I wasn’t distracted much, though I was awfully tired so that might have something to do with it. I went through the whole thing and then was surprised because the card I pulled was the same card! It was the three of shields again, only this time it was right side up, so I drew a different picture, wrote down new estimates of its meanings.
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The third time I’ve tried this reading, I found it really hard to stay with the visualization. Since I went home this weekend I have a lot of work to catch up on, so my mind and body are full of stress. Needless to say it wasn’t easy to stay focused. The process felt like it took me a lot longer because of all of the mental setbacks. I drew the card again just like always, and I had a feeling about it before I flipped the card over, and sure enough, it was the three of shields again (this time reversed like the first time). Here I had been thinking it would be easy to get different cards each time I tried to do a daily practice! I drew a new interpretation and wrote down three words again.
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Instead of doing the reading at night, like I normally do, I drew the card in the morning instead. I didn’t have quite so much on my mind yet that day, so I didn’t find it very difficult to visualize things the way I was supposed to be doing. And I knew when I flipped the card over it wasn’t going to be the three of shields anymore. Oh- by the way, the question I ask for the single card is “what is something that is in the near future for me?” I was, however, surprised to see that I drew the three of spears, reversed, and that it’s meaning was incredibly similar to the three of shields, when it is reversed.

I’m also including a picture I took of what some of the cards look like.

Frame by Frame Consciousness

Action chosen: Tea prep
As I was preparing my tea, it was pretty much all thought stream instead of ‘being in the moment.’ I think because it’s such a mundane action, and because I do it so often (four times or more a day!) that it’s something my body knows how to do, without my mind being present.
Although at the same time my thoughts reflected what my senses were intercepting. For example, as I was sifting out the tea into the teapot, the smell reminded me of London. It made me miss it. Then thinking about London made me think about how my friend Samantha is visiting there this weekend since she is away in Florence for the semester. This reminded me of other memories of her from the last time both of us were in Syracuse for a semester. Similarly, memories played another important part because when I spooned out the brown sugar, it made me think of being home and reminded me of my mom. All the while I was making the tea, though, I felt stress because on some secondary level I was thinking about how much work I have ahead of me.
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I feel like it was a lot easier to just watch the action without any other senses besides sight and sound. By easier I mean that my mind didn’t wander as much. Also, with the way I framed the movie, the tea cup is right in the center, so it’s very focal, I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it. Instead, I was really keyed in on what was going on. Instead of thinking about memories or things I had to do, as the frame by frame went on, I would notice what sounds played. I would think about how I reacted to them. Like wow, that was really loud—especially since it’s going frame by frame. Also my mind would watch the way the light reflected off of the cup. I didn’t really get caught going off on a long tangent thought stream.
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After doing it the third time it was sort of a weird combination of the two. After watching frame by frame, I paid a lot more attention to my actual movements. It felt more like a process because I don’t normally pay attention to all the steps. I just do them. At the same time, I think I paid more attention to my sense of smell and hearing after watching the frame by frame. My mind didn’t wander as far the final time though.